Winds of Change
by KatieLove
Summary: At the turn of a new year, Jordan vows that this year will be different. True to the title, some major changes head her way in a year-long piece of revival.
1. The New Year

Jordan's POV:

I laugh at myself as I drive home from work. It's the new year. I don't feel any different, I don't feel any better. While all these people are driving home at 4 in the morning from great parties, simple get-togethers, or intimate gatherings, my night was spent differently.

I'm driving home. From the morgue. On new year's morning. I didn't count down the minutes, the seconds, or watch the ball drop. I didn't kiss someone special when the clock stroke twelve. Instead, I was in my office catching up on paperwork. I missed the turn of the calendar, but not for the first year.

_I walk a lonely road  
The only one that I have ever known  
Don't know where it goes  
But it's home to me and I walk alone_

It's true; that the only road I've walked is a lonely one. A couple of times I had thought that my life would take me down a side street and lead me into someone's arms. But those times have passed. Twice. Twice I have fallen in love. Once, I was too late to do anything and he moved away, three years ago. The tall, blue-eyed man that I thought, for a fleeting second, I would spend the rest of my life with, regressed back to the Midwest. Minnesota, exactly seven states from Boston.

I fell hard, when I finally did, but it was too late. His new job in St. Paul already proved perfect for him, slower paced, more in-depth, and closer to the lifestyle that he had grown up with. He wouldn't return to Boston without a return trip ticket, and after a few months he had started dating his future fiancé. The invitation came in the mail last week. I threw it away and erased his phone number out of my phone book. Apparently broken dreams make for a place in the H section of one's social life.

_I walk this empty street  
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams  
Where the city sleeps  
and I'm the only one and I walk alone_

The second time I fell in love proved a different story. Woodrow had been in Minnesota for about a year when I finally let Lily set me up with a guy that she knew. A doctor. Tall, blond, and brown eyes. Outspoken, quiet, and willing to wait forever. Exactly opposite of the one I was just getting over. I didn't take me as long to fall this time, it was gradual. We had been seeing each other for a couple of months, on and off, very casually, when I made my first mistake. I admitted to him, one night after a couple of drinks had made my tongue loose, that I had only been in love once, with Woody. I didn't think that anything would come of it, and for a while it didn't.

_I walk alone  
I walk alone_

But when Woody had to fly back to Boston 20 months after he had left, my mistake was obvious. Some new evidence had been found on a case that had gone cold more than three years before. So Woody was requested toreturn for a few days to testify. I wasn't working on the case when Woody was here, so I had no reason to know that he would be coming back. I had no reason to care, Jason and I were in love, and though I hadn't told it to him directly, I was already thinking about wedding rings, dreaming of a life with him. On that fateful night, when the two men of my life met at the bar I had inherited, all hell broke loose.

_  
My shadow's the only one that walks beside me  
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
Until then I walk alone_

I was behind the bar, making drinks, when Jason came in after his shift. I greeted him with a quick kiss over the counter and went to get him a beer.

He shook his head no, smiled, and said over the noise in the bar, "No thanks, I'm actually pretty beat tonight, I just wanted to let you know I'm just heading to my apartment." I nodded my consent and told him that I would see him the next day.

_I'm walking down the line  
That divides me somewhere in my mind  
On the border line  
Of the edge and where I walk alone  
_

An hour later, a face that had only showed itself in my dreams, memories, and a few treasured pictures, reentered into my bar, my life.

"Woody!" I exclaimed and ran out from behind the counter to greet him with a hug.

"Jordan, I was hoping to catch a glimpse of you while I was back." He hugged me back, and catching his scent for the first time in a year and a half brought back wonderful memories.

I asked him to stay, it was almost closing time, and he earnestly obliged. He waited while I wiped down the tables and counted the till. I poured a glass of beer for me and went to join him at the booth in the back.

We talked for a while, about silly, unimportant things, not asking about the known relationships that the other was in. He knew I was seeing a guy, and I knew he was serious about his long-term girlfriend. I hoped that for one night it could be like it always should have been.

He dropped a few coins into the jukebox, and put out his hand, not vocalizing his request. I smiled, and the 20 months of separation vanished with the space between us. He held me, and we swayed, not needing to say anything. My head rested on his shoulder, and I took a deep breath of his scent that I had missed for so long. When the song was over, I looked up to a pair of eyes that I still yearn for today. He leaned down, to kiss me and I closed my eyes.

It wasn't a kiss of passion, and I'm glad he didn't make it one because I wouldn't have been able to help myself. But it was a long, soft kiss. The goodbye kiss that I didn't get the first time he had left. It was a kiss of closure.

"Jordan." It wasn't from Woody. I turned out of his arms, to look straight at Jason, who apparently was surprising me at closing like he did once in a while. He turned to leave, hurt evident in his eyes.

"Wait, Jason! Wait! This is not what it looks like!" I ran out into the cold, and instantly covered my arms and started to shiver, I followed him to his car and stood, begging him not to leave. "This is Woody, an old friend, it wasn't like that kind of kiss…it was…" But I couldn't explain it.

"So that's the man you were in love with?" he demanded, "Or are you **still** in love with him?"

I looked down at my feet to come up with an answer that would fix this without having to regress to lying. Woody's car started a few parking spaces down and I watched it drive away. When I looked up, a pair of brown eyes looked into mine and it was known.

"Okay, where do I fit into this? Where do **we** fit into this?" He was still mad, and starting to yell louder and louder. Tears leaked from my eyes as I stood speechless once again.

"Its fine, you know," his voice cracked, "Sometimes love is just open-ended. It doesn't end. Even when it should have or you want it to. I won't be able to get over you soon either." And with that he left, driving off before I could break down and cry in the falling snow.

_  
Read between the lines  
What's fucked up and everything's alright  
Check my vital signs  
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone_

Sometimes I know it was for the best, but I wish that it had been more civilized. I wish I had told Jason that I wanted to try to fix it. I wish I had called him that night, and the next, and the next. So many times I had typed it into my cell phone, only to find myself hitting end instead of send. So many times I had cursed Woody for showing up, for asking me to dance. So many times I wished that I didn't ask Woody to stay while I closed. But I never called him. I saw Jason a couple of times, at a club we used to go to together, and once at a movie theater. Him, with a girlfriend, me alone. It was a year later. But I was still getting over him. He was right, love is open-ended. _  
_

_My shadow's the only one that walks beside me  
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
'Til then I walk alone_

Twice, I have been in love twice. Neither time the man knew. They still don't know. So as I pull into my parking space, listening to the end of a song that mirrors my so-called-life, I vow that this year will be different. My resolution this year will be to tell everyone just how much I appreciate them. How much I love them, if that should happen again.

_My shadow's the only one that walks beside me  
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating  
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me  
'Til then I walk alone..._


	2. January

AN: As I mistakenly forgot in my first chapter…

Disclaimer: I do not own anything remotely related to Crossing Jordan…except a soundtrack…I do have one of those.

Also in the previous chapter, lyrics are by Greenday, not by me.

January 4

Jordan's POV:

Yesterday I visited my father's grave. I told him how much I loved him and the difference in my life that for which he is solely responsible. I visited the grave of my mother. I told her that I forgive her. I forgive her for causing me so much trouble in my life, both in adulthood and childhood. I forgive her for leaving me too early. Before I got to know her, before I really needed her.

Today, I feel relived. I feel like a ton of bricks is lifted off of my shoulders and that I can take on the world. I turned my calendar over a few days ago, but I'm turning a new leaf today.

I walk into Trace with just that feeling. "Hey Nigel. Look, have I ever told you just how much I appreciate you?" He lifts his face shield and looks at me completely perplexed. "No, really, you are a great friend. You are always there when I need you, and always take my side on everything. You have always been a good friend to me and I just wanted to tell you that."

His expression doesn't change much. "What do you want?" he asks with a sigh. "I've already broken into 2 so-called secure databases today, I guess a third wouldn't be the end of the world."

"No, I don't want anything. I just wanted to tell you that." Something in his raised eyebrows tells me he doesn't believe me. "Really. Nothing."

He clears his throat and starts, "Well, in that case, meet the newest member of our team here at the lovey-dovey morgue." He points to a lab behind me and I turn around to see that Nigel and I weren't alone.

I blush at my openness around this new person, but walk towards him extending my arm, "Hi, I'm Dr. Jordan Cavanaugh…and I'm not usually this cheerful." I laugh at myself for sounding so stupid.

"Hello, I am Dr. Carlos Perez." He says in a thick Spanish accent, shaking my hand. I look him over, he is not what I expected him to be. When Garret announced that we were going to have a new member, I expected someone green, fresh out of med school. Carlos was well into his thirties, and familiar with the doctor title on his name. He wasn't too tall, just brushing six feet, with dark black hair and olive skin. But his voice had a certain softness that I couldn't place. "And I wouldn't expect you to always be so cheery, it would get annoying." He smiled and his white teeth glow.

"Well, Nigel, I'm heading out, I'm actually caught up on all of my paperwork here, but the bar is another story. Stop by later if you feel up to it, I'll beat you in a game of pool."

Nigel laughs and goes back to his work. "Yeah, maybe, but I have a lot to get through here."

"Well you're more than welcome, I'll be there until about eleven or midnight." I head towards the door, "and nice to meet you Dr. Perez."

"Please call me Carlos." He smiles again and I find myself staring at his sparkling, truthful eyes.

"Nice to meet you Carlos."

Jan 28:

"Lily, I don't want to date anyone right now! Okay?" I repeated for the umpteenth time.

"But with Carlos it would be different."

"With Carlos?" I started to laugh at the humor that Lily couldn't quite find.

"Shhhhh…Keep it down, yes with Carlos, he seems like a great guy and you need to get out there!"

I rubbed my forehead and put my elbows on my desk. "Look Lily, I love you and all but I don't know anything about Carlos. I've talked to him probably two times. I don't know if he's single…"

"Yes."

"Where he's from…"

"Costa Rica."

"If he's ever been married…"

"He's a widower. No kids." She smiled as my vain efforts to get her off my back proved hopeless.

"Look, Lily, I don't want to date someone at work." There that ought to do her.

"Why not?"

"Because if it doesn't work out, you can't just stop seeing them, you have to see them everyday and be civilized about it. I don't know if I could handle that. And work relationships never work out." I rambled, not even thinking about the success in the Lily and Bug relationship.

"What about Bug and I? We're working out, and if we did break up, I think that we could still work together. Just get to know him, it might do you some good." She smiled and (thankfully) left my office.

An hour or two later, I walked into Nigel's office to ask him his plan for lunch. As I approached I heard some very loud laughter. Opening the door I asked, "What the hell is going on in here?" Expecting to see Bug and Nigel laughing at something on the computer, I saw Carlos and Nigel, sitting on either side of his desk, eating sandwiches.

"Oh," Nigel started, having a hard time catching his breath, "I was just telling Carlos my joke about the three guys on the bus." Knowing that this joke was terrible, I looked at Carlos, my eyebrows raised.

"And I was just laughing at how stupid it was." Nigel pretended to look hurt and Carlos added "and how terrible his Spanish accent was. Just awful."

"Hey, better than your British one, that's for sure!" He joked, and then turning to me, "What did you want, love?"

"Oh, nothing, just wondered if you were free for lunch, but looks like you already have that covered." I walked out of his office and headed towards the elevator.

"Jordan!" Nigel hurried out of his office and met me at the elevator doors. "Hey," he started, his voice low, almost a whisper, "I heard that Lily is trying to set you and Carlos up, and I've got to say it love, I don't think it's all that bad of an idea. He's a good guy, smart, and funny. I'm not trying to push you into anything, but it just doesn't seem like all that bad an idea."

"Nigel…" I warned, "don't try any of your wild ideas, your ultimate game plans, okay? If it's supposed to happen it will, alright?" I explained, careful not to promise anything. The elevator doors opened and I stepped in, watching Nigel smile as the doors closed.

To be continued….


End file.
